


the break

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Captivity, M/M, POV Outsider, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras, Grantaire, and most of the other Amis have been captured by the terrifyingly efficient National Guard.  One of the guardsmen observes the two, and witnesses the moment Enjolras breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the break

It's not hard to break a man when that's what you've trained all your life to do. It's not hard to break a man, even a man purportedly dispassionate and chaste and cause-driven.

Everyone has a weak point, a distortion in their armor to give them away, and this man is no different. You can see it in the way his eyes linger too long when you bring the first one in, the one who'd fought fiercest to protect him.

If there were still pity or compassion left in you, you would weep to see stone made flesh like this.

Instead, you simply know that you have him.

You place a gun to the back of this one's head. "There are still three left at large. Tell me where your safe houses are, and he lives."

There are spiderweb cracks in the calm of the prisoner's expression, but the one you have at gunpoint doesn't so much as flinch. "Kill me, then," he says, as matter of fact as you were.

If you didn't know better, he could have been one of yours.

Still the prisoner is quiet.

"I'm one of them; you'll kill me anyway. Do it now and save us all the trouble of waiting."

"Grantaire --" the only word, so far, the prisoner has spoken, and he slams his mouth closed in its wake. It's the name of the man you're about to kill.

"Enjolras," he replies, and it's gentle, almost reverent. "If you'll permit it?"

The prisoner smiles, but his heart isn't in it. It's a performance for the man about to die, but there is something intimate in the way it is exchanged.

You fire; the man falls. You are nothing if not efficient.

The prisoner laughs as he breaks, but you know something is wrong; this is not the break you wanted, this has not convinced him to abandon his cause.

"There is nowhere safe, and you won't find them. They are in the wind and harbored by the people they fought for. I won't fail them." The prisoner steps toward the glass of his cage door. "As he did not fail me, I won't fail them."

You don't know what you have created in breaking this man, and that unsettles you.

"Be serious; we will find them."

He is silent. He glances down at the body on the stone floor before him. The dead man fell prostrate, as if in an attitude of prayer.

When he meets your eyes again, his are glassy with tears and he says, his voice chilling:

_"I am wild."_


End file.
